Professional Guardianship Abuse is accomplished under “Color of Law” and Remains Hidden from Public Knowledge!

How They Get Away with Egregious Professional Guardianship Fraud

(Professional Guardianship Abuse is accomplished under “Color of Law” and Remains Hidden from Public Knowledge!)

By Michael Larsen

February 9, 2018

Once judged incompetent and placed under a conservatorship [or guardianship], a citizen becomes a nonperson, with fewer rights than a convicted felon in a penitentiary. – Robert Case, Editor, Bloomberg Wealth Manager

Despite the recent valiant efforts by AARP, The New Yorker, U.S. News and World Report and a few other leading media organizations to shine a spotlight on professional guardianship fraud, it still remains unknown to most of the general public. This fraud is known to government officials who have pondered what to do for years. As stated in the REUTERS U.S. News article, “The abuses of private-guardian systems in some U.S. states have been on the radar screens of policy and legal experts for years.”

Most of us have no idea that professional guardianship fraudsters are able to successfully deflect and resist efforts to reform their lucrative but very corrupt misuse of the judicial system. How do they continue to get away with these crimes? They commit these crimes under “color of law!”

When judges in the courts render horrifically unjust decisions under “color of law,” and people like you and me complain to the police, the law enforcement agencies are normally not able to intervene at all because it appears that the courts are acting lawfully!

Though this is technically legal, it is supremely important that the public understands what “color of law” actually involves! Any government official acting in that role who acts in a way that violates the law regulating that function is acting under “color of law.” “Acting under color of law occurs when the official abuses their power in violation of the law while pretending to be acting in accordance with the law.”

For example, if a police officer shoots a defenseless individual for no justifiable reason at all, he would be acting under color of law.

Another example also occurs at times: if a District Attorney refuses to prosecute a criminal, because the accused is his best friend, he would be acting under color of law. If the same District Attorney then found some charge to prosecute the individual who brought the complaint against his criminal friend, the District Attorney would be acting under color of law.

In professional guardianship fraud, an Order of Contempt is also often used by corrupt judges and attorneys against a family member or close friends of the victim who are trying to help in hopes of derailing their efforts.

An Order of Contempt is a criminal charge and should not be used in a civil matter; however, corrupt civil judges have no problem misusing this charge in their courtroom under color of law. Two cases involving professional guardianship fraud that illustrate “color of law” and the illegal use of “Contempt of Court Orders” are given below.

The Case of Attorney Barbara Stone & Her mother Helen

Barbara Stone traveled to Florida from her home in New York to find her mother emaciated in a nursing home where she was under guardianship (Barbara mistakenly thought placing her in a nursing home for care would be a way to protect her mother from harm). Finding no one around to help her, Barbara used a wheelchair and put her mother in her car, and tried to take her to Denny’s Restaurant for lunch. Barbara was stopped by police and thrown in jail, and her mother was taken to a hospital where it was verified that she was malnourished, dehydrated, bruised, and a host of other medical problems from lack of care under guardianship.

That was 2013. Fast forward to 2018 and consider that Barbara was thrown in jail four times in Florida trying to help her mother by going to police, FBI, and suing in court to get relief. She was placed on probation as the only means of getting out of jail and realizing she could be next, fled to Arizona to live.

Shockingly, Barbara was picked up there in Arizona and after a six month jail stay was extradited to Florida. At her first hearing, her attorney naively thought she would easily be released for time served, especially considering what most people would consider to be a minor offense in trying to take her mother to lunch. This was the offense:

On December 20, 2013, Barbara Stone was arrested for multiple charges involving her elderly mother, Helen Stone. Though Barbara removed her mother from the nursing home simply to feed her lunch, there was a restraining order and the court orders required that all contact with her mother had to be supervised. Barbara Stone was ultimately charged with one (1) count of custodial interference with an elderly person (her Mother), a Third Degree Felony and Level 4 Offense!

Barbara Stone was a former attorney with no prior criminal record. At the time of the Florida November 2017 hearing, who should appear in court but two former judges, several attorneys, the guardian and others all claiming Barbara had “ruined their lives” due to her letters and attempts to help her mother. The judge was a close associate of one of the former judges and recused herself. The next hearing was set for January 8, 2018 where this same group of predators came to scream at Barbara for several hours. The judge gave her three years in prison!

One of the reasons for the three year sentence was that a former judge said Barbara was in “contempt of court.” The former judge, Michael G, used his courtroom in Miami, Florida to isolate guardianship victims, harass and intimidate victims’ families and as in most probate court guardianship situations, operated under color of law.

As of February 2018, Barbara Stone is 65 years old, has been incarcerated since June 2017, and in the eyes of the guardianship predators, she is considered “dangerous.” She is taken to court hearings usually six or more hours prior to the hearing in shackles where she sits with other inmates who may be screaming, crying, yelling, etc. Jail itself is horrific – imagine yourself in a room with 40 or more other women all day and all night who are coming off drugs/alcohol addictions or mentally ill and screaming most of that time.

Another hearing is scheduled for the end of February 2018. Two attorneys are presenting two motions. One motion is to mitigate the sentence since Barbara has already served 508 days in jail which includes the time she was first jailed in Florida, then Arizona, and now again in Florida, and the other motion is to correct the illegal sentence and unjust punishment meted out to Barbara.

We hope this will end favorably and Barbara Stone will be released; however, favorable outcomes are rare in guardianship matters.

The Case of Mr. and Mrs. Peterson and Ted Mottman

[names changed to protect the innocent]

The second example of a court operating under color of law and the wrongful use of the charge Contempt of Court is taken from the book GUARDIANSHIP FRAUD and prepared by Anthony Damon who interviewed witnesses and took the major section for his story from the Appellate Brief written by attorneys for Mr. and Mrs. Peterson.

This matter involves a court-ordered guardianship victim named Ted Mottman who was living in Seattle, Washington, and his friends, Jerry and Janet Peterson, who live in Tucson, Arizona. Mr. Mottman inherited a sum close to $20 million from his parents in 2010. In early 2011, Ted Mottman, at 63 years old, filed for divorce from his 3rd wife whom he thought was a sociopath, and he visited his neurologist and received a clean-bill-of-health.

It is believed that when his wife found out Ted was planning to leave Seattle and fly to Tucson, Arizona to live until the divorce was finalized, she drugged him. She moved back into his home to keep him isolated, immobilized with psychotropic drugs, and unable to defend himself.

It was her plan to have his status as a competent adult nullified by a court so that he would be declared a vulnerable adult. She even presented as fact the completely false assertion that Ted had been declared to have dementia for several years. To declare someone legally incompetent to conduct one’s own affairs is a formal medical determination and requires a physician’s exam and finding to be valid legally.

The Petersons had been in almost daily contact with Ted regarding his renting a home in Tucson, his flight schedule, and concerns about Ted’s safety from the wife he was divorcing. Ted mentioned on several occasions his fear of his wife. Janet Peterson worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Jerry Peterson had worked for The Boeing Company in their Defense Operations.

Because of their close relationship to Ted, they were sued to keep them quiet and to keep them from trying to help free Ted. The reason given for the lawsuit was that since Ted Mottman had been “declared to have dementia for several years” the Petersons were trying to take advantage of him for his money. Since this reason was false, it follows that all of the court proceedings and orders for the next two years were accomplished under Color of Law. They appeared to be lawful acts but were not.

The suit against the Petersons was filed in Commissioner V’s probate court by an attorney for those seeking to make Ted Mottman a “vulnerable adult,” to place him under their control, and to control of all his wealth and assets. The Petersons responded to this lawsuit by stating that Mr. Mottman had never been declared incompetent, that the lawsuit was ‘smoke and mirrors’ being used to hide the actual intent of his wife and her friend who wished to plunder Mr. Mottman’s assets.

Without medical records showing any prior determinations of incompetence or dementia, a pseudo psychological exam was done the day before the court hearing. Mr. Mottman’s wife answered most of the questions during the exam. With this stage set, the following comments are summarized from the Appellate Summary written two years later and illustrate Color of Law by attorneys, the court commissioner, Adult Protective Services, Bellevue Police, and the court-appointed guardian.

After the first court hearing in May 2011, the Petersons – who were trying to advocate for Mr. Mottman and prevent him from being victimized — were sued two additional times to keep them quiet. One suit accused them of being in Contempt of Court, because a friend of Ted Mottman, Mr. Kent, sent out emails about his situation. This was blamed on the Petersons. This should have been filed in a criminal court but was filed in Commissioner V’s civil court.

The purpose of the lawsuits against the Petersons, as in all improper professional guardianship cases, was to intimidate and threaten them to keep them quiet and to drain them of personal financial resources so that they were made to be completely unable to stop the predators from succeeding in their plot.

Astoundingly, in one lawsuit, the Petersons had to pay $60,000 for an email message that another of Ted’s friends wrote about his attempt to save Ted’s life. In addition to the $60,000 fine, the Petersons were given an Order for Protection that stated if they told anyone about Ted Mottman – including law enforcement or government agencies, they would face ten years in prison. Think about that; this is similar to Barbara Stone being incarcerated now for trying to help her mother!

Unfortunately, as was planned by the perpetrators, the Petersons had to end their appellate case due to lack of funds and a settlement was made, and it appeared that the other side wanted it ended too. The Petersons had to pay attorney fees for both sides, plus a color of law charge was made against the Petersons for defamation of Ted’s wife regarding things Ted said to others about her that appeared in others’ declarations to the court! Unbelievably, the Petersons had to pay Mrs. Mottman even though she had gained control over Mr. Mottman’s millions!

In addition to all of these payments, the Petersons would have to pay an additional fine of $80,000 if they said anything about Ted Mottman for the next five years (up through July 2017). A settlement was reached for three reasons: the Petersons had used up all of their life’s saving and borrowed from family, their attorneys could not be sure that an appellate judge would rule against a superior court judge no matter how blatantly his court operated illegally under color of law, and the perpetrators also could not be sure what the Appellate Court would do.

This uncertainty was a gamble for both sides. This crime could happen to anyone and is happening to people all over the country!

The Appellate Brief Summary illustrated that attorneys against the Petersons knowingly and willfully brought misleading and false charges to promote their cause from the onset. Below are some of the more startling of these statements and charges.

The attorney for the wife and her friend who helped drug Mr. Mottman brought their petition against the Petersons falsely stating Mr. Mottman had been diagnosed with dementia for several years, knowing the diagnoses was never done until the day prior to the hearing.

A few months later, a nurse friend of the Petersons reviewed the physician’s diagnostic report. Since this nurse had read these types of reports for 30 years, she stated to the Petersons’ attorney that this was not a standard report and lacked any firm evidence of dementia. Once this was reported to the attorney for the court-appointed guardian, all of the attorneys involved in putting Mr. Mottman into guardianship threatened to sue the Petersons if the Petersons didn’t sign an agreement that they would tell no one about Mr. Mottman’s situation, or they would be heavily fined.

The Petersons’ attorney told the Petersons emphatically that this commissioner always ruled in favor of the guardian and that they might lose “hundreds of thousands of dollars if they didn’t sign this document.”

The nurse was so upset about the situation facing Mr. Mottman that she wrote to the police and Adult Protective Services in Seattle asking them to investigate this matter. Her letter to Adult Protective Services was supposed to be confidential as are all complaints to Adult or Child Protective Services. The attorney for the guardian made false statements about the Petersons to the court in order to obtain the confidential documents that pertained to the complaint to Adult Protective Services.

The attorney for the guardian falsely stated in court that Ms. Peterson was a “stalker” and was behind emails and mailings sent out by others who were aware of Mr. Mottman’s sudden isolation.

The attorney for the guardian filed a request for finding of Contempt of Court against the Petersons in the same civil court rather than with the King County Prosecutor as should have been the case. The court commissioner ignored the Petersons’ attorneys’ request to identify any alleged act(s) the Petersons committed to warrant the finding and instead awarded unreasonable and excessive attorneys’ fees of $28,000 that the Petersons had to pay.

The commissioner also sanctioned the Petersons another punitive $20,000, which was imposed in violation of the law (RCW 7.21030(2)). In addition to that, the commissioner awarded another $30,000 in damages without a showing of actual damages incurred since the court issued its order in June 2012 with no showing that any injury was proximately caused by the Petersons’ conduct.

The attorney for the wife of Mr. Mottman falsely claimed to the Court that Ms. Peterson was responsible for defamation comments about Ms. Mottman when these comments were made by Mr. Mottman to others who wrote declarative statements of this fact that are part of the Court record.

Major witnesses reported to the Petersons’ attorney that the Bellevue Police Department and Adult Protective Services investigators never contacted them for an interview to ascertain the facts of this matter

Is it a coincidence that Mr. Mottman’s wife worked for the Bellevue City Prosecutor’s Office and that she requested Detective Thomas to call a major witness in order to intimidate him? According to Mr. Kent, a close friend of Mr. Mottman who spoke to Mr. Mottman on the phone and tried to rescue Mr. Mottman from the house following that conversation, Detective Thomas had no interest regarding the statements Mr. Mottman made to Mr. Kent in Mr. Mottman’s request for help from this friend of many years. The detective told him instead that Ms. Peterson was behind lies that Mr. Mottman was isolated, and that Mr. Mottman’s wife was just trying to keep Mr. Mottman safe from the harm of others since he had dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Detective Thomas called Ms. Peterson to intimidate her and stated that he was involved in reports from Mr. Mottman’s wife regarding her belief she was being harassed. It was a direct conflict of the agreement signed by all parties that no one would go to law enforcement.

As mentioned, the Tucson nurse also wrote to the Chief of the Bellevue Police Department requesting an investigation of Mr. Mottman. The Chief of Police responded to this request from the nurse by stating her department was not going to investigate this matter and referred her to Adult Protective Services, which she had already done.

Adult Protective Services not only ignored the request for an investigation, they sided in all ways with the court appointed guardian. The APS case worker, Marie Alex, responded to the nurse that all Mr. Mottman could say was “Yes” or “No” and that in her opinion Mr. Mottman had severe dementia. This was eight days after Mr. Mottman was seen by Dr. Wagner who reported that Mr. Mottman got up to greet him, they talked, and Mr. Mottman correctly identified the Governor of Washington and that Mr. Mottman needed stimulation.

Ms. Alex of APS also called Mr. Kent and told him that he must by lying about what Mr. Mottman said to him because Mr. Mottman was “not allowed to talk to anyone,” which clearly violates the Standards of Practice as set out by the National Guardianship Association and should have been investigated rigorously by APS.

These examples of the police and Adult Protective Service helping to promote this professional guardianship fraud scam against Mr. Mottman are common and illustrate how these organizations also operate illegally under color of law and how terribly difficult it is to fight this crime and save the life of a loved one once a motion to be appointed as a guardian has been filed and a corrupt judge acts to award the predatory guardianship.

In the case of Mr. Mottman, this guardianship racket was easily accomplished and without any sacrifice while the Petersons were financially destroyed! The predators made millions with little effort and the public knew nothing about the crimes that occurred.

Mr. Mottman died on December 5, 2015 as a ward of Guardian Services of Seattle (GSS). He was 68 years old. He had served in Vietnam and was a career law enforcement officer. The last four years of his life were spent in isolation and terror.

In their two year battle trying to save Mr. Mottman’s life, the Petersons spent around $250,000 in fees for all attorneys plus the fines imposed upon them. For a retired couple, these unjust fines and fees financially shattered them. Additionally they were threatened with ten years in prison and another $80,000 fine if they talked about this case for the next five years.

This pattern of widespread legal wrong-doing involving guardianship scams was further verified in the spring of 2017 when Ms. Peterson tried to re-enter the United States after visiting a friend in Mexico. When she was stopped by U.S. Customs Agents, Ms. Peterson was asked to pull over, her car keys taken, and was told to get out of her car. She was asked why she had an Order for Protection against her. As soon as she said that it was a guardianship matter, she was told to get back in her car and to proceed into the United States. The U.S. Customs Agent told her that those were “junk orders,” and he wished he could change her record to delete the Order for Protection but that he was unable to do so.

Thus, it’s clear that the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs Agents know that these guardianship abuse scams are accomplished under Color of Law. There are thousands of people like Ms. Peterson who have tried to re-enter the U.S. and have no criminal records, but have these Protection Orders issued by guardianship court judges. The agents know that these guardianship courts issue “junk orders” and therefore, they allow those individuals who were pulled over due to bogus “Orders of Protection” to re-enter the country without further delay.

These cases are given as illustrations of the total disregard that probate courts have for the rule of law. THE NEW YORKER article “How the Elderly Lose Their Rights” described how guardians can sell the assets and control the lives of senior citizens without their consent. Believe this: it happens every single day to an unsuspecting elderly person who is of sound mind and competent to handle their own affairs.

ARRP recent published an article, “State Guardianship Systems Require Expedited Reform” and referred to egregious acts conducted by court-appointed guardians such as those described in the two cases above.

The reader may be thinking that the likelihood of this happening to them is fairly small. Let me pose these questions:

Do you have parents that are perfectly safe at all times and are you planning on living a long time?

Please realize that wills, trusts and durable powers of attorneys are not only ignored by probate court judges, they are disclaimed since the ward becomes the property of the court-appointed guardian. A simple slip-and-fall can land someone in the hospital where they are scooped up by a guardian and hidden in another location – and this happens all the time, especially if there is money involved.

One of the things I did recently was to re-write my Durable Power of Attorney and Health-Care Directive to state: “I reject the appointment of a court-appointed guardian.” These documents were given to family members, my doctor, and to others. I do not use an attorney. My home is in a trust. I’ve put the trust into an LLC that is in the name of family members. My hope is that this is enough protection, but under color of law handed out by corrupt judges, no assumptions can or should be made.

_______________________________________________________ Color of law:

U.S. Department of Justice: Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. For the purpose of Section 242, acts under “color of law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official’s lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim. The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.

Contempt of court:
There are essentially two types of contempt:
a) being rude, disrespectful to the judge or other attorneys or causing a disturbance in the courtroom, particularly after being warned by the judge;
b) willful failure to obey an order of the court. This latter can include failure to pay child support or alimony. The court’s power to punish for contempt (called “citing” one for contempt) includes fines and/or jail time (called “imposing sanctions”). Incarceration is generally just a threat and if imposed, usually brief. Since the judge has discretion to control the courtroom, contempt citations are generally not appealable unless the amount of fine or jail time is excessive. “Criminal contempt” involves contempt with the aim of obstruction of justice, such as threatening a judge or witness or disobeying an order to produce evidence.